Wednesday, August 23, 2006

I'm Just Gonna Go Fetch My Walker And My Hearing Aid Now.

There is nothing like Beloit College's mindset list to make those of us who are no longer college freshmen feel unbelievably old. If you haven't seen this thing before, it's released every year and aims to give us fuddy-duddies a sense of what kind of world the year's incoming college freshmen grew up in. The ones that really get me from the Class of 2010 list: "'Google' has always been a verb." and "Reality shows have always been on television." Ye gods. Well, at least a couple of these items refer to things that were also before my time, which makes me feel a little less superannuated. But just a little.

6 comments:

  1. I've always thought this was an amusing but fairly stupid list. ("For most of their lives, major U.S. airlines have been bankrupt"? Um...'kay. I don't think this is something that occurs to most college freshmen...or, you know, most anyone. "Oh my god, like, are you sayin', like, airlines were once actually, like, y'know, financially solvent, and, like, stuff? That is so weird!" No.)

    You know, I was going to add something, but the more I look over this list, the more stupid some of these items sound. I saw them trotted out on one of the local news shows this morning, and even with the best of them, it's little more than "Wow. The world is different nowadays." Some are sort of amusing, but they don't really make me feel especially old.

    Why not a reverse list? "When our parents were kids, there were two Germanies! Whoa!"

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  2. I dunno, I don't think I've ever taken it especially seriously as anything other than a fun "wow, the world is different nowadays!" exercise. I suppose it's a bit inaccurate to tack that word "mindset" onto it as, yeah, I doubt said incoming freshman think much about airline solvency, either. But it does get me thinking a bit about how much the world has changed since I was that age, and how differently the world kids live in now is from the one I grew up in.

    But then, I think perhaps I'm particularly susceptible to feelings of oldness, having just hit that disturbing three-five mark, as well as hanging around online with a fair number of people significantly younger than I am who don't remember when there wasn't an internet. Which is something that makes my brain explode every time I contemplate it. :)

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  3. who don't remember when there wasn't an internet. Which is something that makes my brain explode every time I contemplate it.

    Indeed. It would probably make their heads explode if I pointed out that I have been on the internet since before the world-wide-web existed.

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  4. Sara Lee makes underwear???

    wierd...

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  5. Yeah, Sara Lee underwear sounded weird to me, too. Probably because I'm old. :)

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  6. Hah!!!! Old. What do you know.

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